You throw the ball. You catch the ball. You hit the ball…Of course, baseball fans know that this line from Bull Durham is far from true, part of the humor of the movie and a huge part of the fun of the game. This blog is a space to talk about baseball, being a baseball fan, all of those things that make the game fun and the Angels, because they make baseball fun for me.

Oh Nolan. Yu Stinker, Yu!

Hey, everyone else has a pun-ny Yu Darvish related headline going on right now. I was feeling left out.😉

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jon Daniels is the GM but the Rangers sneaking in under the radar to win negotiation rights with Yu Darvish when other teams were considered more highly favored was so sneaky clever that it reminded me of the Adrian Beltre deal last season, wherein I did say Nolan Ryan, you stinker…or, you know, some colorful approximation there of. And, hey, I applaud sneaky. I delight in clever. The unexpected team signing the coveted player (as long as it isn’t instead of the Angels, mind you) makes me outright giggle in approving glee. I just wish those Rangers weren’t so darned good at it.

Of course everyone’s divided over whether the Rangers signing Darvish will ultimately be good for them or bad. Depending on who you talk to, Darvish will either be the second coming of the Phillies 2011 starting rotation, Nolan Ryan and Chris Carpenter rolled all into one pitcher…or Dice-K part deux. But, but, he’s going to have a hard time adapting to the MLB, say the latter contingent…we have a different mound…a different ball…we have different philosophies on throwing before a game…He’ll melt in the Texas heat…blah, blah blah. While most of that sounds like valid concerns, I just have a feeling that if Darvish agrees to terms with Texas it’s all going to work out just fine for them. Lately Jon Daniels seems to have a pretty much un-erring eye for picking just the right players to fit the Rangers’ needs each season and I have no reason to believe this will work out any differently…Grrrrr.

So, am I worried? Eh, I say bring it on! Even if they sign Prince Fielder too…though, understandably I am rooting for anyone who isn’t the Rangers and preferably who isn’t in the AL West to sign Prince Fielder, but still. Bring it. Not because I feel particularly assured of the outcome, mind you. Even if the Rangers sign an, I assume, stellar Darvish, I still say the Angels have the better starting rotation. Even with Albert Pujols on the Angels I still say that the Rangers have the stronger lineup. I think the outcome of each matchup between the two teams is anyone’s guess.

No, I say bring it on because the more this offseason takes shape, the more certain I feel that almost every game the Angels and the Rangers play one another in 2012 is going to be the sort of game that everyone is posting about the next day in heavily exclamation pointed italics peppered with phrases like “Wow!,” “Amazing!” and “I will tell my grandchildren about…” Okay, maybe that last phrase is exaggerating a tad…but maybe it’s not. And I. Can’t. Wait!

6 Comments

Personally, this revs me up big time. Can’t wait to see Yu & Co. do battle against *sniffle*, um… against *sniffle*… okay, this is still hard for me, but you know what I mean. The AL West is not just “that other division” anymore.
–Jeff

Poor Jeff. *hands you a hankie* I think you’re handling it very well. It should be a great time though. I’m looking forward to hopefully some great positive attention for the AL West from the various talking heads instead of all the usual weak division cracks.

Very true, Benny. And, from my end of the peanut gallery, that noise would be happy cheers. But I don’t see that happening. The Rangers make awfully good personnel decisions these days. But it’s true, you never know how it’s going to turn out when you bring in a player from completely outside of MLB.

The AL West is certainly the place to be these days. As for Darvish, well we won’t know how good he is until the season gets underway. One thing we do know, his signing just converted millions of Japanese fans into Ranger fans.

I hadn’t thought about Japanese fans becoming Ranger fans, Bluejaysnest, but you’re right. Not being especially well traveled myself (something I hope to fix eventually) I don’t know if Texas is a common tourist destination for Japanese travellers or not. If not, it’s going to be now.🙂

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